The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 607 Road

Braised shark fin with rice may be extravagant, but it's absolutely delicious.

Because Zhang Zhiyun's final exam results last semester were not ideal (she failed to rank in the top three in the class), she lost the right to eat braised shark fin rice and could only scoop two spoonfuls onto rice and eat it with other dishes.

Chang Qingqing ranked among the top three in her grade, but she didn't like this way of eating. This child loves rice soaked in soup, and she ate two bowls of old duck soup with rice.

Despite Shi Dadan's modesty, Qin Huai ate three large bowls of braised shark fin rice. After the meal, he was so full that his throat was full, and every time he opened his mouth, he could taste the flavor of braised shark fin. He had become a giant bowl of braised shark fin rice.

After finishing his meal, Shi Dadan had to go home, no matter how reluctant he was. It was one thing for him not to go home when he wasn't in Guangdong, but now that he was back, not going home was just plain stupid; it was downright audacious.

Of course, Shi Dadan carried two bags of raw embryos home.

He wasn't eating the raw embryo; he was taking it home for his wife and kids. Qin Huai was going to make chicken noodle soup tomorrow morning, as Shi Dadan would be coming to Cao Guixiang's house for breakfast. With Cao Guixiang's homemade chicken broth, Qin Huai wanted to see if the chicken noodle soup could reach S-level.

Cao Guixiang understood Qin Huai's extravagant request to cook noodles in chicken broth that she had painstakingly prepared over several hours. She said her grandson liked to mix braised shark fin with rice, and her apprentice cooking noodles in broth was nothing unusual.

My family has the means.

After finishing their meal and washing the dishes, everyone went home, leaving only Cao Guixiang, Zhang Chu, and Qin Huai in the house.

Evenings were usually Cao Guixiang and Zhang Chu's TV time. They watched whatever the TV station broadcast; if a drama was good, they'd watch it; if not, they'd watch news or variety shows. Their goal wasn't really to watch anything, but simply to have some sound in the house.

Cao Guixiang likes to knit while watching TV, while Zhang Chu is used to playing on his phone while watching TV. Sometimes, he will even run to his room to do woodworking when he hears the TV in the living room.

"Xiao Qin, how many of those cutting boards I made for you have you chopped up?" As an excellent carpenter, Zhang Chu was very concerned about the condition of the cutting boards he had carefully crafted.

"The first piece... is almost chopped up," Qin Huai said somewhat embarrassedly.

He really hadn't practiced his knife skills much; An Youyou usually chopped the fillings herself. Speaking of which, An Youyou ruined two cutting boards this year just from chopping meat fillings.

Zhang Chu was somewhat disappointed, but didn't say anything. He just said with a hint of regret, "I just got some good pieces of wood last month, perfect for making cutting boards. If you've used up most of the cutting board I made for you last time, you can make a new one. If that's the case..."

"How are those molds I made for you doing?" Zhang Chu asked again.

When the mold was mentioned, Qin Huai became even more embarrassed: "I don't use it much; it's mostly other employees in the store who use it. It works quite well. Our cafeteria's animal-shaped red bean buns are especially popular with children. When nearby kindergartens have events, they often order large quantities of animal-shaped buns from our cafeteria."

Qin Huai wasn't lying about the kindergarten's meal ordering; however, these steamed buns were usually prepared by Chen An or An Youyou, and Qin Huai never participated. In fact, he often didn't even know that the Yunzhong Cafeteria had kindergarten meal orders, only seeing it on the monthly reports.

Zhang Chu nodded with satisfaction. As an excellent carpenter, he didn't care who used his molds. He just wanted to know if the molds he made were easy to use. He was relieved to hear that they were easy to use and that he used them often.

"Move over and sit somewhere else. What are you doing sitting between me and Xiao Qin? You're blocking our conversation." Cao Guixiang slapped Zhang Chu with a hint of disdain. "Go make some tea. I need to talk to Xiao Qin about some serious business."

Zhang Chu quickly got up to make tea, while Qin Huai looked at Cao Guixiang, who was knitting a sweater, and sat up straight.

Cao Guixiang smiled at Qin Huai: "Don't be nervous, it's not an assessment, just a casual chat."

"You're making me even more nervous. You love to set traps for me."

Cao Guixiang smiled without saying a word, glanced down at the sweater she had been knitting, realized that the stitches were wrong, quickly unraveled it and started knitting again, and asked leisurely, "You said before that you were sure what kind of pastry chef you wanted to be? Are you still sure now?"

"I'm sure," Qin Huai said firmly.

"Why am I so sure? Many people work as chefs their whole lives without knowing what kind of chef they should be. Some people are not actually suited to be chefs, but they become chefs by chance because their elders in the family are in this profession. Some people are actually born to be chefs, but they have never had the opportunity to be one, and they may not discover their talent until they are in their thirties or forties."

"Some people are exceptionally talented, but they don't like the profession at all, so they can only waste their talent and are confused about what else they can do. Some people have no talent in this area, but they have a lot of passion, so they persist and live a mediocre life."

"Xiao Qin, which type do you think you are?"

Qin Huai thought about it seriously for a moment.

"I think I am exceptionally talented, passionate about this industry, and happen to have been working in it since I was a child, and I will continue to persevere and achieve great success," Qin Huai said.

Cao Guixiang burst out laughing: "You really dare to say that."

Zhang Chu brought over the brewed tea, along with a bowl of tangerines and a dish of melon seeds, and sat down to eat the tangerines.

"Eat fewer oranges. I noticed your voice was a little hoarse this morning. Eating too many will make you feel hot and bothered," Cao Guixiang said. "I have some stewed rock sugar pears for you in the kitchen. They should be ready around 9 o'clock. Xiao Qin, you should have a bowl too, it will help soothe your lungs."

"Oh, I'll just have two." Zhang Chu quickly put down the oranges, poured himself a cup of tea, and drank it.

"Master, do you think what I said is wrong?" Qin Huai asked.

Cao Guixiang stopped smiling and looked at Qin Huai very seriously: "That's right."

"A genius must have this confidence. This is not arrogance, it is confidence. When I was young, I was not as talented as you, but I was more confident than you. I firmly believed that I could learn all the dishes. No matter how difficult the technique was, it was only a matter of time for me. There was nothing I couldn't do, and there was nothing I couldn't learn."

"Your Grandpa Zhang was the same way. You can ask him if you don't believe me. His master was the most famous carpenter in Beiping back then. When he was still an apprentice, he thought he could take his place. When we were dating, he made a lot of promises, saying that one day when he became the most famous carpenter in Beiping, he would charge a certain amount for each piece of furniture he made. With his skills, he would definitely charge more than his master."

Zhang Chu blushed and said, "That was all when I was young. I was young and impetuous and didn't know any better."

"So you thought I wasn't confident enough before?" Qin Huai asked.

"No, not at all." Cao Guixiang continued knitting. "I just think you're not arrogant enough. Young people should be a little arrogant, because arrogance leads to setbacks and suffering. How can you stumble if you're not arrogant? How can you learn a lesson if you don't stumble? How can you be beaten down by reality if you don't learn a lesson? How can you strive to improve yourself if you're not beaten down by reality?"

Qin Huai: ...

It sounds like Cao Guixiang has read quite a few wish-fulfillment novels over the years.

"So, have you decided on your style now?" Cao Guixiang asked the first question again.

"confirmed."

"What is it?" Cao Guixiang was genuinely curious. Qin Huai had told Cao Guixiang about the textbook style he had identified during a video call, but Cao Guixiang didn't really understand what this style was.

Well, it's a bit too abstract to put it into words.

As a chef with a strong personal style, Cao Guixiang understands a chef's style as creating something different from others. However, Qin Huai's so-called textbook style is precisely one that has no style or characteristics whatsoever.

"Have you heard that I'm not mentally sound?" Qin Huai asked.

“I can tell that sometimes you mutter things like proficiency or missions to yourself. When you were practicing your sword skills here before, you would often click on things in the air while practicing, but that’s not abnormal.”

“When the amount of practice is large, the mental pressure will be very high. I think your mental capacity is already very good because you didn’t cry while practicing back then.” “When my senior brothers and I were young, we would cry while practicing the basic skills. Sometimes we would dream that we were practicing the basic skills and we would cry in our dreams.”

"Your pillow hasn't gotten wet."

Qin Huai: "...Since I was little, I've fantasized about having a system. This system is roughly like this: it has an attribute panel, it issues tasks, it will..."

Previously, when Qin Huai introduced his system to others, he gave a very general overview, simply stating in a few words that the other person knew it existed and that he might occasionally have a fit and open the game panel. However, after giving Factory Director Xu a detailed explanation of his system at the nursing home in Suzhou, Qin Huai felt that his previous introductions were disrespectful to the system.

A detailed introduction is required.

Qin Huai rambled on for three minutes, leaving Cao Guixiang and Zhang Chu completely bewildered. Zhang Chu gave Cao Guixiang a confused look, his eyes clearly saying, "Are you sure this child isn't under a lot of pressure? I think this pressure is much greater than crying while practicing."

It took Cao Guixiang a full two minutes to accept the fact that Qin Huai had imagined such a detailed system.

"So... the style you found is because of this imagined system?" Cao Guixiang asked.

“Yes.” Qin Huai nodded emphatically. “This system displays specific numerical values and level definitions for all my basic skills. For example, my current skills in dough preparation and filling preparation are at the master level, and my experience points for filling preparation are much higher than those for dough preparation.”

"The skill level is advanced, and so is the finger technique. Although it takes longer to upgrade the skill level than the finger technique, I haven't been grinding the skill level experience points much in the past six months, so the finger technique experience points have surpassed the skill level."

"My knife skills are at the intermediate level, and I don't gain much experience. At my current pace, my knife skills might still be at the intermediate level in five or six years."

Cao Guixiang nodded, not quite understanding: "This rating is quite fair, but what does your style have to do with this rating?"

"I think the style that suits me best is not about making the pastries in a certain way, nor about giving certain pastries special meanings and my strong personal style. I have never had any special characteristics since I was a child. My biggest characteristic is that I can make delicious pastries."

"Master Zhou from Zhiweiju said that my dim sum is made to a very standard standard, textbook standard. The elderly people in our Yunzhong community also think that my dim sum is exactly what they imagine. My dim sum is exactly what they imagine the most beautiful and delicious dim sum to be. Of course, it may be even better than they imagine."

“Master Zheng used to think that my snacks always had the shadow of someone else’s, but he didn’t know whose shadow it was. After all, I didn’t have a master before, and I learned my skills by reading recipes.”

"Later I realized that I might not be a reflection of someone else, but rather someone who has been imitating recipes all along. I didn't have a mentor with a strong personal style to guide me; I learned to make desserts from textbooks, so my style has always been textbook-like."

"Isn't this a style in itself? Making desserts that conform to the public's perception and imagination, and even better than they imagine, isn't that my style?"

"Some pastry chefs pursue innovation, some pursue uniqueness, some pastry chefs' pastries are intense, and some pastry chefs' pastries are delicate. Everyone has their own type of expertise, and so do I, except that I am good at a wide variety of things. I am good at all kinds of breakfast buns and steamed buns, as well as rice cakes, yam cakes, mung bean cakes, and hand-kneaded noodles, which are relatively difficult to categorize. But if you were to express them numerically, what I am good at are actually the pastries with the highest numerical values."

"My style is to push the basic stats to the limit I can reach, and then use those stats to make the desserts I'm best at."

Cao Guixiang understood.

Although Qin Huai was describing it in a way she couldn't understand, she did understand it.

“How could I have thought you weren’t arrogant at all?” Cao Guixiang looked at Qin Huai. “You’re more arrogant than any genius I know, including myself.”

"When I was young, I didn't even dare to say that I had mastered the basics."

Qin Huai mimicked Shi Dadan's honest and simple smile, and gave a shy smile in return.

To be honest, Qin Huai discovered that Shi Dadan's smile was quite a way of concealing his merits and fame.

Cao Guixiang bent down and knitted two more stitches of a sweater, but she wasn't very satisfied, so she unraveled it and started knitting again.

Zhang Chu secretly ate an extra tangerine.

Qin Huai picked up his teacup and took a sip of tea.

Cao Guixiang suddenly sighed, and Qin Huai and Zhang Chu both looked at her.

"I suddenly regret not steaming two of the steamed buns you brought, Xiao Qin, tonight, to see what level your fermented rice steamed buns have reached now."

"Old Zhang, call Chi Yuan and ask him if Xiao Qin's fermented rice buns are good."

"Should we play now? It's only 8:40. We just finished dinner not long ago. It's not like we're sneaking a bite right now," Zhang Chu asked.

"How could I not know what kind of person my son is? He'll definitely start steaming as soon as he gets home. If nothing unexpected happens, Siyu and the others are at Chiyuan's house right now."

Zhang Chu dialed Zhang Chiyuan's number, and the phone rang seven or eight times before being answered.

"Hello, Dad, what's up?" Zhang Chiyuan's muffled voice came from the other end of the phone.

"It's nothing, your mom just asked me to ask you if the steamed buns Xiao Qin brought were good."

"Delicious, so delicious! It's even better than last time... Dad, what kind of steamed buns are these? How could I possibly eat the steamed buns that Xiao Qin brought? Aren't these steamed buns supposed to be kept in our fridge for us to eat together in a few days?"

"Stop pretending, is it delicious? Is Siyu at your house?"

“…Dad,” Zhang Siyu’s voice came from the other end of the phone, “It’s so delicious.”

"How many did you eat?" Cao Guixiang asked.

"Just... one."

"Nonsense! Mom, Siyu is already eating her third one!"

"Mom, my brother ate three too!"

"Yunyun ate three, while Qingqing only ate one, really only one!"

"That's because Qingqing really can't eat anymore!"

Cao Guixiang gestured to Zhang Chu to hang up the phone.

“Siyu and Chiyuan can still eat three after finishing their meal…” Cao Guixiang said thoughtfully, “Xiao Qin, you’ve really found your way.”

Qin Huai: ...

Master, do you judge whether I have found my path by how many steamed buns your two unlucky children can eat after finishing their meal?